Page 32 of The Stolen Throne
“Is there a place we can talk?” I ask him.
Horus will know by “we” I mean the voted-in leaders of the Vanished who I consider friends, though I didn’t know them long before I ended up in the palace with Eidolon.
Reven clasps his hands behind his back and bends a look on me that hopefully to others looks as though he’s nodding, but I have no problem interpreting it as not happy mixed with a bit of a warning. Why? Because I might anger the zariph? Can’t he see that in this game of power, my only play is to establish my authority? Shove it down the zariph’s throat if I have to? If I don’t, we’ll be seen as begging for help, and that means we have no leverage.
If I really wanted to demonstrate my power, I’d dismiss the Shadowraith everyone else is visibly avoiding, that invisible moat of distance still around him.
I focus on Horus, but he glances over my shoulder in the direction of our host. His expression remains inscrutable, but I suspect he’s gauging how irritated Cainis is. Horus’s history with his own zariph likely is coloring his thoughts. “Of course,” he says slowly, still not looking at me.
No one is happy with my actions. Sounds like I’m on the right track, then.
I slide a glance Reven’s direction. “Please gather the others.”
He walks away without a word, that prowling gait of his eating up the ground.
I try not to watch him go.
I pin a pleasant smile to my face that feels carved from wax as I return my attention to Cainis. “We won’t be long.”
A string of emotions crosses the man’s face—surprise, irritation, and finally speculation—before he manages to force his features into an equally waxy smile. “As you wish.”
With a nod, I follow Horus away.
He takes me to one of the tents nearby. A new burst of anger flushes through me as I take in where the Vanished are situated within the camp—right on the edge. Cainis put all the Vanished closest to my sister, huh? Sacrificial pawns if the camp gets attacked when they come for her? After all, then the Vanished would be the first to respond. They’d be first hit if the camp is attacked from the outside as well.
I guess the zariphate’s protection only goes so far.
I try to give the zariph some credit. It’s what any leader would do. Protect your people first and foremost. After all, our presence puts his community in greater jeopardy. My grandmother certainly would have done the same if she were in his position.
I’ll ask my friends for their thoughts on it once we’re all together.
Horus and I enter the smallish tent, the rollable sides already down for the night. It’s as basic as you can get. A few tattered rugs but no other pillows or furniture, and a single candle almost melted down to the nub in a brass chamberstick holder. I’m sure finding enough material to house the large number of people I sent the zariphate with no notice was difficult. I try to hold on to my gratefulness that Cainis took them in at all. Mostly due to Cain, I have no doubt.
A debt I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to repay.
I look at Horus, taking in hair the color of wet sand graying around the sides. Tawny skin unmarred by time. Gnarled hands. Weathered features and eyes lined with history and a life of sacrifice.
He’s handsome in that resilient, hardened way I’ve always found most born into the zariphates to be. His sun-worn skin crinkles around the corners of his mouth with a smile of welcome that I feel to my center. This man was more than kind to me when I first arrived in the Shadowood, he was a piece of home.
“You shouldn’t have talked to me in front of the zariph,” he chides. “I’m still an Outcast as far as all the zariphates of Wanderers are concerned.”
Horus once told me how he defied his own zariph. The man wanted to take Horus’s sister as his third wife. Horus disagreed, and the zariph cast him out and married the sister anyway. If I ever meet that zariph, I’ll happily bring the full power of the throne down on his head.
Horus ducks. “Cainis barely tolerates my being here as it is. By law, he should throw me into the desert with no food or water or way out and leave me there to die.”
This man was voted in as one of the leaders of the Vanished, the representative from Aryd, and yet he still has his hang-ups, probably made worse by being back in his home dominion.
“That’s how you want to greet me?” I hold out a hand.
I’m pretty sure I shock him, because Horus goes a little stiff. Only for a moment, though. Then he loosens up and grasps my hand with his own, covering our clasp with his other hand and bending over that. “We’ve been worried about you,” he says as he straightens and lets go of me.
I huff a laugh. “Likewise. And if the zariph has a problem with you, he’ll have to take it up with me. At least some good can come from being queen.”
Only instead of smiling, Horus gives me a gently chiding look and a shake of his head. “I’m not worth risking losing the safety we’ve found here, and I’m not letting you spend your political currency on me, either.”
“You are worth it.” I don’t know if it’s my words or the adamant tone I use, but he stares like he’s trying to figure out if I mean it.
I stare right back. “We all are, each and every one of us, worth the effort, no matter the risk.”
